A huge highlight of 2020 has been our weekly Utah Taste Offs.
Utah Taste Off is such a cool company, I had been eyeing them since they started back in 2019. When they first started, they would throw huge events where everyone would come for a fun night of tasting yummy treats from across the state. When Covid hit and they were no longer able to do big events, they did a genius Covid pivot and started creating take home taste kits
Each week they announce a theme, sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls, brownies, popcorn etc., then they get entries from 6 bakeries and restaurants from across the state and compile a taste kit full of delicious treats!
I had seen them advertise their take home kits and really wanted to try them out, but the kits are designed for two people and I didn't know if anyone else would want to do it with me, especially since we were all quarantining. But when they announced they would be doing sweet rolls and said there would be a raspberry, lemon, orange and maple pecan, I couldn't resist. I figured I would taste test one set and then give the other set away, maybe even split it up and give it as four different gifts.
When I picked up my kit I was beyond excited, just look how AMAZING all those rolls look!
Their placemats are so adorable! I love the clever fork design around each entry.
The raspberry one was my favorite. It was made with fresh raspberries that brought some tartness that really helped cut the sweetness of the roll and the frosting. But all of them were unbelievably delicious, I was in sweet roll heaven.
It was so much fun not only to get a box full of amazing goodness, but to analyze each entry and vote on different aspects of each roll, namely taste, texture and appearance. I wrote down my rankings and my notes and then submitted them online. They announce the winner at the end of each week, and the bakeries get all the notes as feedback.
My favorite roll won!
I asked Bethy if she would be interested in the second set, since I know she loves cinnamon rolls so I figured these would be right up her ally. We were both at Mom and Dad's doing a socially distanced visit in their backyard when I gave her the rolls, and we decided to cut them up and have Mom and Dad try them as well. All three of them absolutely loved it and thought it was such a fun idea, we are a family of foodies. I mentioned some of the items they had coming up over the next few weeks and everyone said they would love to try out another kit.
And thus began our weekly tradition of Utah Taste Offs! We have done it every week for 19 weeks and we are still going strong. Taste off day has become my favorite day of the week!
For the first couple of months we would meet in Mom and Dad's beautiful backyard and eat on the lower patio. It was absolutely perfect for summer, the kids could run back and forth between the patio and the swings, Monty loved playing in the fountain, the garden was lush and beautiful and for the most part, it was great to be out enjoying the warm weather. (There were a couple of days were it was suuuuuuuper hot, but the lower patio is a lot cooler and dad would bring out a couple of fans to create a light breeze)
The next kit was cake donuts! I love donuts so much so I was really excited for this one.
They were all so cute!
We always look forward to seeing who the winner is. Some weeks there is a very clear winner and some weeks we have no idea who might win. There have also been weeks were we were sure a certain entry would win, but then one that we didn't like at all would win. It keeps us guessing from week to week!
Each week they have three different pick up locations on three different days. There is a pick up for Utah County, Salt Lake County and Davis County. The pick up location within those counties changes weekly since they are trying to make it convenient for everyone. I always sign up for the Salt Lake County pick up since no mater where the pick up location is, it's been all over the place from South Jordan to Sugar House Park, it's always on my way to Mom and Dad's from my house, so it works out great for us.
Everyone preorders their kit online a few days before the pick up date, and then we just drive through, give our name and they place a kit in our car. Super simple, super fast and pretty contactless.
The next week was Snickerdoodles, one of Mom's favorites! It's always fun when the treat is someone's favorite, we have all had couple of weeks were it was "our week" and the treat was one of our top favorite sweets.
Some of these cookies were super thick!
This was my favorite snickerdoodle, others in the family liked the one from smart cookie (#5) better.
The next week was Father's Day weekend, so they had a special BBQ edition taste off. Dad doesn't love BBQ, he doesn't hate it, but it's' just not one of his favorites. I asked the fam if they still wanted to get a kit and they all said they did, so we joined in!
We didn't have many notes on this one, they all tasted kinda similar to us. For our Fathers day present, we created our own taste of kit and we let dad choose the theme, he choose donuts. So I researched all the best donut places, picked their best selling donuts, drove around and picked up all the donuts, then put them together in a kit. I even created a scoring sheet exactly like the ones that come in our weekly kit. I posted pics of it on my Quarantine Holidays post. It was so much work, I thought it would be way easier than it was. So having the kits assembled and ready to pick up is so nice!
After BBQ and donuts, we enjoyed the gazebo twinkle lights and the perfect summer evening weather.
The next week was one of my weeks since it was macarons! Everyone knows how obsessed I am with macarons so they were excited to see how I thought these compared to other macarons I have had.
They were so pretty!
Making everyone's taste off plates.
We were a little divided this week. Dad and I loved the raspberry lemonade, it had the strongest flavor by far and was a really good macaron. Bethy really liked the coconut, it was pretty good too, it was my second favorite.
Dad and I were shocked when the raspberry lemonade didn't win, but like I said, the coconut was pretty good as well, just a more subtle flavor.
The next week was the fourth of July and the theme was patriotic sugar cookies! How fun are these cookies?? It's always so exciting opening the box and seeing all the goodies
The cookies from Great Harvest were literally the size of my face. This picture isn't an optical illusion where the cookie is in the foreground and just looks big, I had it right up against my face, it was huge.
They were just the cutest!
We thought Lehi bakery would win for sure, the subtle lemon flavor totally elevated the taste of the cookie.
We were completely shocked when our least favorite cookie was the winner. This cookie got 4 points in our book, out of 15!
Ok we have actually skipped one week, which was cheese week. We love cheese, especially fancy cheese. But there are a lot of nasty cheeses out there and we didn't feel the need to take the risk with the kit. So we skipped one week.
Then they came back strong with brownies!!
We each got a nice big square of each brownie!
Even though the mint wasn't that strong, I think the BYU catering one was my favorite. The Chocolate brownie was Bethy's favorite and my second favorite. Bethy always seemed to be able to pick the winner.
Luci joined us for brownie week! She always brings so much energy and happiness to our get togethers.
Monty absolutely loves Luci. He always gets the biggest smile on his face when he sees her, and he gives her the most gentle pets and kisses.
Next was cheesecake!
We were all super excited for this week, I really like cheesecake a lot.
The flavors were
traditional with raspberry sauce
caramel apple
chocolate peanut butter
oreo
To be honest, this week was a little bit of a let down, we didn't totally love any of the entries. However, I am thinking it was our fault because we didn't put the kit in the fridge and let the cheesecakes get nice and chilled before tasting them. So they were kinda warm and melty.
My favorite were the caramel apple and the chocolate peanut butter. The actual cheesecake was peanut butter flavored which I thought was impressive, it wasn't just all in the toppings.
I did like this entry because it came in it's own adorable little plastic container, they would make such adorable gifts.
The next week was one of Bethy's favorites, edible cookie dough! I thought this was such a fun and unexpected theme! I love cookie dough too, so I was excited about this one as well.
Cookie dough dinner is served.
As you can see, we pretty much loved every entry. Bethy gave them all 5's, she really loved all of them.
This one was a very clear winner, it was so chocolaty and delicious.
The next week was popcorn! One aspect of the Utah Taste Off's that I really like is how it helps support local Utah businesses. Several smaller, lesser known bakeries have gotten a lot of good publicity from participating in these taste off kits which I think is so awesome! Especially during Covid, when some places are struggling, it's awesome to support so many local places.
With the popcorn kits, all of the pick up locations were at megaplex theaters to bring attention to the fact that movie theaters are also having a really hard time in the Covid climate since no one can go to the movies. In this week's kit there were vouchers for large movie popcorns we could claim at any Megaplex theater. My heart hurts for the theaters and I really hope they will be able to hold on through the pandemic, going to the movies is one of my all time favorite actives and I really miss it. So I hope having a night out at the movies will still be possible when all of this is over.
This was the pick up line! Depending when I arrive at the pick up location sometimes there is the longest line, but it moves really quickly so it's not a problem. It makes me so happy to see so many people showing up for their kits!
The popcorn week was fun because it was almost like two taste offs in one. There were 4 venders and each submitted a savory popcorn and a sweet popcorn.
We didn't like the savory flavors as much as the sweet ones.
On taste off nights, mom always cooks us a delicious, nutritious dinner to counter balance all the sweet treats. This night's dinner was particular beautiful, full of fresh summer favorites.
We also saw that a local drink shop was selling freshly made beignets so we decided to add on to our taste off experiences and taste another sweet treat.
They came with a raspberry dipping sauce and they were soooo good.
We really loved this vendor's sweet popcorn entry. It was sugar cookie flavored, but to us it tasted like buttery coconut, either way, it was delicious.
The next week's items came in this adorable insulated tote bag! They needed to be kept cold because it was ice cream week! This was the week Dad had been waiting for, ice cream is his all time favorite.
They were so adorable!
The flavors were:
Aggie Blue Mint Chip
Raspberry Sour Cream
German Chocolate
Monkey business (strong banana)
Huckleberry
Graham Canyon
Mom and Dad absolutely loved the mint chip and the raspberry, they were both super good. I really liked the graham canyon, First of all, the name is adorable second of all the ice cream was graham cracker flavored with graham cracker chunks and bits of chocolate covered honeycomb candy, it was so delicious and the graham cracker flavor was surprisingly strong, which is very hard to do.
The next week's pick up line was super long, the line went on and on. They actually had to change the pick up location because the line got too long and was running into Redwood Road.
This week was so popular because it was such a fun and unique kit, it was citrus desserts. Another week just for Dad! We also started getting these adorable teal pens in all our kits this week, such a nice little addition.
Key Lime Pie
Lemon Drop cookie
Orange roll
Lemon Crueler
Lemon Bar
Grapefruit Cupcake
The grapefruit cupcake was gorgeous, it had the sparkliest edible glitter on top, it was impossible to get a photo of it. The bakery that submitted these created them just for this taste off. The ladies that run Utah Taste Off really wanted a grapefruit entry, so Alicia's cupcakes created one for them. I applaud them for this because grapefruit is such a hard flavor to work with in baked goods.
The lemon drop cookie was so delicious and had such a strong lemon flavor.
The orange roll was really good, but I didn't think it was very imaginative or special in any way. It was just a regular orange roll.
The next week was salsa, this was Reece's week!
There was a churro food truck parked close to the pick up tent, so those of us that wanted churros to go along with our salsa could buy some. It was a fun little addition!
I don't know what happened to our scoring card for this week, but I remember liking this salsa. The corn one was our favorite, it had a sweet and sour taste to it that was super unique.
Next up was eclairs!
There is a cute little eclair shop on 13th just down the road from Mom and Dad's, so we thought we would add on to our kit with a few extra eclairs from there.
They were really pretty!
raspberry lemon
coconut
double chocolate
All the eclairs that came in the kit were the traditional flavor, so it was a real apples to apples taste test.
This was another week where we were surprisingly let down. Some of the eclairs were really kinda nasty. Schmits was our favorite by far, and it's a little nostalgic for us since we have been getting our delicious iced, Christmas bread from them every year since I was a little girl.
Then it was time for cinnamon rolls! This is one of bethy's top three favorite treats so she was really excited. And so were the rest of us, there is no way to mess up a cinnamon roll, we knew they were all going to be delicious.
They were all quite large, but the entry from Wallaby's Steakhouse was ginormous. Apparently this was a "mini" version they created just for the taste off, when you order the cinnamon roll in one of their restaurants, it comes in a round cake pan and weighs 1 full pound!
They were all delicious, it was hard to go wrong. Some were a little dryer than others, but a little dryness won't stop me from eating a cinnamon roll.
Lehi bakery is our new favorite bakery. They won over our hearts when we did our own donut taste off, their entries blew the other donuts out of the water. So now, whenever we see they are one of the vendors, we know they are going to submit something over the top delicious.
Rice Krispie Treats!!!!!!! This was one of my favorite weeks by far! A good, chewy, gooey rice kripsie treat is my number one favorite kind of treat.
And Cubby's is one of my all time favorite rice krispie treats, it's tied for first with Village Baker. So I was so excited to see they were participating in this kit!
There were three regular flavored rice krispie treats
a caramel fudge
a peanut butter chocolate
and a horchata
Monty couldn't wait to try one of the horchata treats
I was so happy cubby's won! Their rice krispie is made is browned butter, so it has a little extra saltiness to it. And they just nailed the texture of a perfect marshmallow treat, it's perfection!
We look forward to this fun family activity every single week!
This week is fall flavored cupcakes and I can't wait to see how cute they are and taste how delicious they are. I might post a continuation of more kits later down the road, they've got some fun holiday themed ones coming up.
